I find more and more that as I get older, the people around me get older faster. It’s as if those who are my age no longer remember what it’s like to have a youthful spirit. Maybe the pressures of work have taken their toll, maybe the stress of bills and borrowing money has made them grow old before their time. I don’t know. Ask a middle aged man who Falling In Reverse is and they would have no idea what your talking about. Ask them when the last time was that they just saw a hill and had to pull over and climb it was and they wouldn’t be able to remember. Most wouldn’t even be able to climb a hill anymore. When was the last time you cried when you discovered something beautiful. When was the last time you were amazed. When was the last time you heard a song for the first time that made you want to get up and move. Maybe I had to grow up so fast that I am living in reverse. A Benjamin Button so to speak. I want every day to hold something new.

I dress the way I do because it’s who I am and who I always have been. Life has not changed me, only added to me. The fountain of youth does not lie somewhere beyond the lost horizon. It flows through the heart. I suppose being a father adds to that. I get to be a kid again every day. I get to play and run around and dance and see things for the first time all over again through their eyes. I can look into my children’s eyes and just be amazed. I can see them skip across the yard and be so filled with emotion that I fight to keep in inside.

I was at a music festival a couple of years ago and someone told me how cool it was that I brought my son to the show. And I thought, what are you talking about, I was coming anyway, he’s just tagging along. I was at one a few weeks ago and one of the parents there told me that a group of them were going to hang out away from the crowd and the music while the kids went inside, they told me I could join them if I wanted. I thought they were crazy, all this live music and incredible energy and youth to be gained. Why sit it out, I couldn’t wait to be caught up in the middle of it. Being thrashed around, fist in the air, screaming, sweating, being part of something bigger than just sitting on a patch of grass waiting for life to pass me by.

I think it’s important to keep looking for things to do that you have never done before. Hockey games, football games, concerts, comedy shows, plays, rafting, climbing, hiking. Jump in the mosh pit with arms swinging and legs kicking. Bang your head with purpose. Jump feet first into cold stream. Life is short, don’t waste a minute of it. Read as much as you can, listen to something you never listened to before, eat something you never even thought about eating. Be yourself.

Life will always have it’s bumps and bruises. There will always be bills to pay and people looking for ways to spend your money. Government will always be corrupted by money. And loved one will pass away. But as long as we continue to grow and experience and feel, then we will have done all we can in this life. And know that when the time comes for us to leave this place, that we didn’t waste a second of it. You know, except for those Sunday mornings after you drank a bit too much on Saturday night, then waste a few hours on the couch it’s ok. But other than that. Get up and live.

Eat, drink and be Merry, for tomorrow we shall die. I’m not saying we revert back to the times of Sodom and Gomorrah. But a little Roman Empire every now and then couldn’t hurt.